


Reflections of Us

by Silex



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Incest, Pining, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22832713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: Alfred always envied Alexia, seeing her as what he might have been.Who he should have been.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Reflections of Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/gifts).



> I saw you on the treatless list and then I saw you were asking for these two. I hope I didn't go too heavy or too creepy with the implications.

Growing up together they had only each other for solace, for no one else could understand. Even their father, directing their learning as he did, knew that he was grooming his replacements more than his children. Mathematics, biology, chemistry, virology, everything they would need to take their father’s place they learned from the best tutors he could find, and what tutors couldn’t teach them they learned from their father.

And what he couldn’t teach they learned from each other.

As children they had a game, a simple one.

They called it ‘queen of everything’. Alfred couldn’t remember if it had been Alexia’s idea or his, but they’d played it for as long as he could remember.

It felt like his idea though and he wanted to think that it was.

Of all that they had done together, that simple game was what he wanted the most to be his. Not his alone, but something of his that they shared.

The game started with them going to their room and setting out all of the books from their shelves, because they had no other toys that they cared for. Alfred would carefully line them up in rows, like soldiers at attention, until the whole floor was covered in standing books.

“Look at all these learned men,” he’d say.

Alexia would smile contemptuously down at the books, “What do we need them for?”

Then they would walk up and down the rows of books, pushing them over one at a time, giving each a name or condemnation as they did so. One was named after a tutor that had punished Alfred unfairly for speaking back and Alexia laughed as she pushed it over. Another was pushed over for being old and ugly. One was boring, another given the name of the servant who’d refused to bring snacks to their room, even though the demand had merely been the two of them testing in the first place. One by one they knocked over the books, ‘killing’ all of the stupid and useless people until it was just the two of them standing in the middle of the room, gazing down on the imagined carnage.

“We don’t need them,” Alfred would say breathlessly, “That’s why they’re all dead.”

Alexia would nod and then smile at him, “It’s just us left and I’m the queen of everything.”

She never said that he was her equal, that he was one of the worthy, but it was implied by his survival, that he was allowed to be at her side.

They were so alike as children, not that their father would ever say that because all he could see were the differences.

The things that Alexia knew without seeming to need to put in the effort of learning left Alfred in awe. It wasn’t the family name that drove him to succeed, but the desire to keep up with his sister even as he fell farther and farther behind.

Then Alexia was sent away to run the Antarctic lab all on her own. They both agreed that she deserved it, even if he felt a small twinge of envy, not for her position, but because it was time she was apart from him, time that they could not share in the same way they had shared everything else.

They were so alike and so different and as they grew older those differences became more pronounced.

He hated it, not her, but the differences.

She was so much more intelligent him, yet she didn’t treat him with the same contempt that she treated everyone else. Alexia remembered their games, in secret called him a prince. Inferior to the queen that she was, but far above the commoners, those ignorant masses that they both agreed they were meant to reign over.

And now she was gone.

He had always been Alexia’s shadow, but he didn’t envy her for that. She was smarter, superior in every way, surpassing him in the same manner that he surpassed the others, the useless people all around them. Alfred knew this to be true because Alexia had told him this herself. They grew up together, so alike that they shared everything.

Everything.

He didn’t worry about her. Of course she would be fine, it was impossible for her not to be, but what about him?

Who was he without her?

A shadow with nothing between him and the light, her light. There were times when he felt as though he might vanish.

Yes, he still was being prepared to run Rockfort Island someday, but he’d always imagined that he would be doing so with Alexia. He would be at her side, her subordinate, not on his own while she was so very far away. Until she’d left they’d never been apart for any length of time.

Waking up alone in his room, not hearing the sound of her voice, it was a form of misery he’d never imagined. In leaving Alexia had taken a part of him with her.

The better part.

The part that mattered, his sense of direction.

At night when he couldn’t sleep he would sneak into her room and lay on her bed.

It still smelled of her, so it was almost like being close to her.

The letters she sent, for him alone, were best read in her room. There he could best hear her voice when he read them, so close to things that all belonged to her nearly as thoroughly as he did.

He would read them aloud, imaging her narrating the contents to him. He would read it in her voice, for he belonged to her as much as anything in the room.

He belonged to her most of all. That was what gave him value.

Apart, admiration grew into love, if it hadn’t been that from the start, the love a brother would feel for a sister, but so much more.

Something more complete.

Alexia was perfection and it was a perfection he longed for, not to sully by trying to claim it as his own, but to merely be in the presence of.

Time passed and the letters continued, read with breathless excitement in Alexia’s room. She was making such progress with her research, her unfettered potential finally given outlet. Of course she missed him, and reading that nearly broke his heart. He was the only one who understood her, the only one who she could speak freely to. The letters were her confessions, carefully worded so that only he could understand because there was always the concern that they would be seen by eyes they weren’t meant for.

Neither of them trusted their father.

The letters sustained him, though they grew harder and harder for him to read. Was he forgetting her voice? Closing his eyes, laying on her bed, he could hear her voice, the inflection and tone just so, contempt for all but him. The love wasn’t imagined, nor was the bitter amusement. It took so much effort for him to manage it all just right, hours spent practicing hidden away in her room.

Alone in the dark, for he didn’t dare turn on a light lest someone find him and forever bring an end to their games, he practiced speaking in her voice.

In the dim light, as he looked into her mirror he could almost see her. If he stood just right his reflection would vanish and she would be standing there, close enough to touch despite the distance. He would smile and Alexia’s reflection would smile back at him, the awkward, struggling boy gone, replaced by Alexia in all her splendor.

With everything he told her, he never told her of this continuation of their games. It was his secret, something that he needed and she didn’t need to know about.

The secret made it more powerful.

And that wasn’t the only secret he learned of.

There were secrets on the island, rooms and chambers that he hadn’t been meant to find, but sneaking back and forth between his and Alexia’s room had sparked curiosity and made his curiosity all the more keen. He found ways and shared what he found with his distant sister.

Alexia felt the same way, stymied by mysterious rooms in the Antarctic facility. She wrote to him about them, places that she couldn’t get into despite complaining bitterly to their father.

Father reassured her that there was nothing to those rooms, no way in, their having been sealed when their purpose was fulfilled.

A purpose that father never elaborated on.

That something would be denied to him was only natural in Alfred’s mind, but that something would be denied to Alexia was unthinkable. It rocked his world as surely as the sun failing to rise.

Many nights were spent retreating to Alexia’s room, railing against the unfairness of it all in her voice, her powerful, beautiful voice. It helped him gather his courage for further explorations in the mansion on the island.

His father was dull, predictable in some ways. Having the same passcodes for too many of his files, leaving keys in the same place each night, sleeping soundly after a glass of brandy to relax after a stressful day and then waking up at exactly the same time every morning.

A safe and boring and convenient routine. One that was easy for Alfred to take advantage of.

His father was very much a braggart and liked to congratulate himself in his journals. Talk of his greatest research having taken place at the Antarctic facility was abundant and intriguing. All convoluted and wrapped up in visions of grandeur and past glories he spoke of restoring Ashford family to its proper glory, bringing it back to the days of Veronica Ashford.

It was all well and good, making it clear that he and Alexia were the fruition of that effort, Alexia mirroring Veronica in both beauty and intellect, but at the same time it was clear, increasingly, painfully clear, that as the years passed father felt that there was something missing.

In those years his journals went from hopeful to fearful, concern that Alfred and Alexia’s lack of compassion for those lesser than them represented a failure of some sort. After all, Veronica had been loved by all, gaining power and influence through her social graces, as well as her intellect.

Alfred scoffed at the idea, as though the clarity that the two of them possessed, unclouded by foolish notions of compassion for those lesser than them, was anything other than proof of their brilliance.

Each night he read his father’s journals, files on the computer, anything he could get his hands on and then carefully covered his tracks.

Slowly but surely he was putting together a puzzle, of his family, their connection to Umbrella, their father and his and Alexia’s place in it all. She was at the center of course, as she should be, but there was more to it, so much more.

Information was missing though, implications that his and Alexia’s unknown mother was a surrogate. Her fate was unknown and unimportant, but it raised the question of who their real mother was. Why was a surrogate needed? There were hints of his grandfather being involved, something menacing about his ties to Umbrella, but nothing more than implications and allusions to the real answer being elsewhere.

There were layers and layers of secrets for Alfred to peel back, like the thin coating of dead skin over a wound.

What lay beneath?

Where were the answers he sought?

The Antarctic facility was at the center of it, Alexia dropped him regular hints in her letters, carefully veiled hints that only he would pick up, for she’d grown certain that father was afraid of her and reading her letters.

Someone was monitoring her research, even her secret projects, she was sure of it and the most likely culprit was their father, increasingly afraid of their potential. He knew that they had long ago surpassed him and would eventually find a way to discard him as he was increasingly a hindrance.

With what was and wasn’t known, one thing became certain in both their minds, a conclusion that bound them as tightly as anything else they shared, the room in the Antarctic held the secret.

The answer, when it presented itself, did so by chance.

Except it wasn’t the answer, but the first step towards finding it.

Father mentioned the jewels in the family crest in passing in his writings, having used them for something. There were three of them, one he kept and the other two he gave to Alfred and Alexia. Initially Alfred had assumed that there was some symbolic meaning to it, but the more he learned the less inclined he was to believe that.

Rather their purpose was more literal, their specific weight and shape would serve as a key to the Antarctic room. It made sense, Alexia had drawn an illustration of what she believed was the locking mechanism for the room and it fit.

Alfred suggested that she test his theory in a letter, keeping the particulars vague.

She did and found that her jewel did fit in one of the slots, perfectly, enough so that she was disinclined to believe it to be coincidence.

Further supporting Alfred’s theory was the offhand suggestion by father that he might want to give back his jewel for safekeeping.

Alfred agreed, already fully aware of all of his father’s hiding places and how to get into any safe in the mansion. He then took advantage of the moment to suggest that the two of them visit Alexia, see where her research was going.

Reassured, father agreed as Alfred had expected he would.

The fool actually seemed to think that, by taking Alfred along, it would hide the true purpose of his intent which was to spy on Alexia.

How sadly he was mistaken, Alfred gloated in front of Alexia’s mirror that night before stealing away into the darkened halls to retrieve the jewels that would allow them entrance to the final secret.

Timing was of the utmost importance, for he was sure that his father would check to make sure the jewels were there. Paranoia had set in and the old man worried far too much, though not needlessly so.

Far from it in fact.

Alfred waited, hidden in the shadows, given courage by Alexia’s presence – he’d worn one of her finest dresses, even if it no longer fit him as well as he would have liked, and thus attired confidence filled him. In that moment he was Alexia and she never failed.

Sure enough, father emerged from the room with the safe that Alfred had expected the jewels to be in. Once he was out of hearing range Alfred snuck in and took them.

The next morning if father noticed that he looked tired and disheveled he must have assumed it was excitement that had kept him up all night.

The flight to the lab was agony. The chance to finally see Alexia again, not just to imagine her, but to see her, it was almost more than he could take. Everything that he had held back, everything he missed welled up to the surface and threatened to overwhelm.

And to see her, to finally see her!

It was a struggle for him not to cry out.

Ignoring father and the scientists and servants assembled to escort them in and give them the grand tour, Alexia ran and embraced him.

“I have them,” he’d whispered to her.

And she smiled, just for him, letting him know that he’d done well.

It was as though he was floating as she showed them around the facility, her facility.

She spoke with pride, in her work of course, but also for what Alfred had accomplished, solving a puzzle that she had not been able to. In time she would have, but in this case he had been the one to do it.

All her pride, all her smiles, were for him, and in the cold of the facility he basked in the warmth of her superiority.

And her love for him.

That night, after dinner and father was safely on his way to bed, Alexia suggested that Alfred might want to see the lab one last time, help her with a particularly thorny problem.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about that. In the past he had been the one she turned to when she needed to think over something, not because he might have some insight, but because he was the only one worthy of those moments.

It was so ordinary that no one suspected a thing.

Only the two of them knew that it was Alexia’s way of announcing their intentions, that soon they would know everything.

Together they went, hand in hand, and when it was time Alexia allowed him to place the jewels, a reward for all he’d done.

The door opened, the secret room revealed to them, and together they went to find the truth.

And what a horrible, breathtaking truth it turned out to be.

Finding out that they were clones, part of an experiment, had been a shock, but it made sense.

No wonder they were so alike.

If Alfred had felt horror it had only lasted for an instant, replaced by a feeling of certainty that took his breath away. It was their father, their creator, who was the reason that he was merely a shadow of Alexia. If he had been made properly, not born, but made, he would have been her equal in every way.

He cried, for who wouldn’t cry at learning such a truth, that they could have been something so much greater?

Alexia understood as well, holding him in her arms, kissing his hair and muttering reassurances of revenge and sweet devotions that he had been waiting his whole life to hear.

No wonder she loved him so, he realized, for he was her and only she was worthy of love.

It was comforting and agonizing and they were both in agreement that their father would pay for what had been done, crippling Alfred by making him imperfect and then trying to deny Alexia her true potential by sending her off to the Antarctic to hide from the public eye.

Together they began to make plans, for the man who’d acted as their father and for the world.

It was Alexia’s birthright after all and Alfred, in as much as he could be, flawed creation that he was, deserved to be a part of it all.


End file.
